


I'll be back, bud

by snowflake777



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Big Brother Shiro (Voltron), Character Death, Coma, Heavy Angst, Hospitalization, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Needs a Hug, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recovery, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23324533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowflake777/pseuds/snowflake777
Summary: Nothing else matters when it comes to this. A picture of a single person smiling. Brown hair, tan skin, blue eyes. A blur of laughter flashes by. He took this picture when the person was standing in front of this shack. He was immersed by this person's beauty blending in so well with the scenery behind him that he had to take it. Life or death.And now, it is. Because this one is the only one he has left and the one that's keeping his life string intact. On the verge, but at the same time it's causing him both sides. He's standing under the veil of life and death.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. The Old Times

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic ever to be posted here so be easy on me and feedbacks are always appreciated (in fact, I'd be begging for one)

Keith lights up the first cigarette.

Morning hasn't come yet. The air is still bone-chilling, lacking the sun as water droplets forms on leaves. No sign of people waking up soon.

Keith breaths in gingerly, letting the smoke darken his lungs further, then he breathes them out. He'd call it meditating if it weren't slowly burning his life like the cigar itself. Huffs of graceful smoke danced its way through the air until it slowly dissipates; as short as human lives.

He leans against the wall and slid himself down to sit on the terrace floor. The old wood creaks at the weight shift. His shack is as old as his deceased father, maybe even more than he knows.

Everything is old: the sky, the clouds, the endless grass fields before him, the lake, the wind, his memories. Old and dying, clinging to what's left as they gradually fade like the smoke of his first cigar, then gets tossed away, forgotten, when it's over.

He lights up the second cigarette.

Bringing the cigar up to his lips, his other hand trails down to grab an old framed picture. He stares blankly.

Nothing else matters when it comes to this. A picture of a single person smiling. Brown hair, tan skin, blue eyes. A blur of laughter flashes by. He took this picture when the person was standing in front of this shack. He was immersed by this person's beauty blending in so well with the scenery behind him that he had to take it. Life or death.

And now, it is. Because this one is the only one he has left and the one that's keeping his life string intact. On the verge, but at the same time it's causing him both sides. He's standing under the veil of life and death.

Old, isn't it? It's supposed to be old to him because years has passed. It's supposed to be growing veins and molds then rusts with time. But the memories kept it alive and well tended.

His heart kept beating for this.

Keith puts down the frame onto his lap. He breaths in the toxic cigar with his lungs aching, taking his time because time is old and nearing its end. So he carefully considered each breath.

He doesn't know why he's drained to his bones. There's something missing. He can feel the rough wood floor under his fingertips but it's not quite there. As if it's a made up texture his mind decided. Everything seems missing. His body even.

He lights up the third cigar.

He lights up his fourth.

Then fifth, sixth, seventh.

A pile of cigar butts piled beside him. He taps away the remaining ashes on his current one, forgetting how many he has lit. As always, the wind would sweep away any remaining smoke in front of him. I reminded him of something. Or perhaps something reminding him to stop.

The wind blows hard on him, knocking off the pile of cigars away with it. He shields his eyes weakly. Under his arm, he sees something. He notices something. The world around him came alive, animating. It's brighter.

Across the hills, there is a little dot far away for his eyes to focus on. It gets closer and closer. He stands up and steps closer too, curious of what's approaching him.

He can scarcely make out an outline of a person with brown hair, tan skin, and blue eyes. Those eyes.

"Lance?" He says, nearly out of voice.

The next thing he knows it that he's running. He's running the air out of him, with the wind lightly tossing him sideways. Yes, it's him. It's him. It's him. He's here. Lance.

Keith throws himself and they stumble to the ground.

He stumble on the ground.

It stops. Everything stops and disappears in a blink. He's in a dark void of emptiness that he's not sure if it's really dark or not. A tug of memory comes to him. It's as if he's back in space. Lost in the abyss but now he has gravity.

"Lance?" He looks around. Nothing.

"Hey there."

He whips his head back. Lance, wearing his blue paladin armor. He looks just like in the picture. It's the same Lance.

“Thought I’d check up on you before I go,” he says with a smile as if nothing happened. “You look like crap, Keith.” Lance chuckles.

Keith tugs a smile for the first time in awhile at Lance’s usual teasings and his face drops.

“Where’re you going?”

“Somewhere you can’t go yet.” 

The ground shakes. Or is it shifting? Spinning. He walks up to Lance, but he couldn’t reach him. He keeps running and running. Lance seems to be further away from him each step he takes. No, he can’t lose him again.

“I’m sorry, Keith.” Lance approaches him. His paladin armor fades into his signature white and blue long sleeved shirt with jeans. Keith stops running but he stretches out both hands to grab him near. They take into each other’s arm. Keith slips onto his body and Lance gently guides them both to the ground.

It’s warm as he remembers it. He’s home.

He’s finally home and yet- No. No, this can’t be happening. Keith pointlessly begs to the stars, the universe, to Lance.

“Keith.” Lance said, cupping his face with both of hands.

“You can’t- don’t go. No, please don’t leave me.” 

“Keith.” He repeats firmer.

Keith grips Lance’s shirt with the remaining strength he has.

“Hey, I’m not leaving you, bud.”

“Lance, no. Don’t leave me, Lance.” His voice fails him.

“We are a team, right?” He wipes Keith’s tears away. “I’ll always be at your side.”

The world rattles again. His vision glitches as Lance slowly fades.

Everything is taken from him. His mom, his dad, his home, and now Lance is going to be taken too right before his eyes, slipping away under his very fingertips.

“I love you, Keith.”

“LANCE!”

Keith jolts up with wires attached all over his body. The beeping sound spikes up. He panics, moving around to free himself with cemented limbs. He screams. He falls, crashing down some things as a few wires tugs off of his skin forcefully. A consistent alarm stinging through his ears. Keith crawls as his breaths become disoriented.

There were other voices shouting his name. He swats away the hands that’s trying to keep him down. He struggled uselessly. A pinprick pain on his neck. His muscles slowly gives away until everything goes dark again.

~~~~~~~~

“Be gentle with him. He just woke up and he’s extremely confused.”

Shiro nodded. “Of course, doc.”

He lets himself in the room, finding Keith conscious and calmed down while staring with an empty face at the white sheets.

“Hello, Keith.”

He doesn’t move, instead he asks “Where’s Lance?”

Shiro’s stomach drops. Before saying anything, he sits himself on a chair beside the bed and leans to him.

“You don’t remember?”

“What happened?”

He hesitates telling him right away, but it seems like keeping him in the dark any longer won't be good either. Carefully, he construct the words he's about to say for awhile before delivering it. In that moment, Keith looks up to him with pleading eyes, begging for an answer.

"You and Lance were out in a mission to a planet nearby a month ago. When you guys came home, the ship malfunctioned then crashed to earth. You survived but went to a coma since then and Lance. . ."

"Why? What happened to him?"

Shiro takes a tired deep breath, preparing for the worst. He looks back to Keith's eyes while trying to show how much he's sorry.

"He didn't make it."


	2. Wake Up, Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is there something. . . different?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to continue it anyway.

There's. There's something different from the grass.

"It's lovely, isn't it, Keith?"

They have more colour and more animated, but that's not it. It's in the tip of his tongue.

"Your father and I used to love seeing the open fields like this."

Was it not real? The sky, the old creaky wooden shack, and dull sky. Was it all just his dream during the coma?

"I see how it passed on to you now." Krolia sits down on the grass beside him. The morning is quiet with bustles of few nurses passing by the hallway and patients on wheelchairs accompanied by their loved ones.

Today is the day Keith's discharged from the hospital and his mom is here to pick him up. After a long time trapped in crutches and walking bars to finally get his weak muscles work normally again, he can go home. Wherever that is.

"Mom," he finally says, not bothering to look back at Krolia, "has the grass always looked this way before?"

Krolia thoughtfully stares at the green grass. "No… " She frowns. "Why are you wondering about the grass?"

"Nothing, it's just." He sighs slightly. "it’s only been a month but a lot of things has changed.”

“Well, things do move on quicker than we think.”She pauses. Keith could feel her eyeing him like a mother would do when they can’t contain their worry. “Maybe they trimmed the grass shorter than usual.”

It’s not what Keith meant, but he doesn’t dare to explain his long comatose dream so he’s not bringing it up. When he doesn’t engage in the conversation again, Krolia gently prods him to get going.

His mom and friends throws a small and intimate celebration for Keith’s discharge. Nothing too loud for him to handle, but it ends up in Coran, Pidge, and Hunk huddling up on the sofa, limbs tangled while snoring softly. Uno cards scattered across the house. Boxes of alien board games they've never figured out how to play it in the end. Empty soda glasses and used plates.

He insists on cleaning the dishes even though his mom told him to rest. How long is he going to rest until everybody stops worrying? He appreciates it, nonetheless, but he can’t always rely on people, can he? It always unsettles him. Still, Shiro joins him and dries the plates.

They idly chat about the mysterious alien board games, especially the one with a demonic clown face on the board and flying cards. Yeah, he hasn’t been out that long-- in real time-- yet he misses this. All of this. The dim warm light at 2 AM in the morning. Soft snores that consistently reminds him he’s not alone. The smell of musk and old books stacked in the corners of the house.

He remembers that his mom chose to stay at earth with him after the Galra empire was settled for good. They stayed together for at least a year before Keith moved in with Lance. With Lance.

"So, How're you feeling?" Shiro nudges his side gently while putting a bowl away.

Keith sighs half exasperatedly. "Shiro, do you have any idea how many times I've been asked that since I actually woke up?"

The man chuckles while patting Keith's shoulders. "Sorry to hear that, but how can we not worry when you were unresponsive like a powerless robot for the first week."

Was he that lifeless for the first time he woke up? He doesn’t remember much from that week, only bits and pieces of awareness, then the overwhelming feeling of everything around him overloading his senses. His mind was disoriented. The only thing he could thought of was the last moments of his long comatose dream, playing on repeat.

"For real, though, what's up?"

As far as Keith knows, he's fine and fully functioning for now if you count out the fact that Lance's gone. Maybe he's still mourning for him, but, if the war has thought him anything is that he needs to constantly move on. Even if it means losing the only person you-

“Nothing. I don’t know. It’s been confusing lately.” Keith flicks the remaining water away from his hand and wipes it.

He needs to move on.

“Take it easy, the doc said it’s normal for patients to be very confused after waking up from a long coma.”

Only, it feels longer than four weeks for Keith. It’s like he was out for a decade. He could still taste the bittersweet tobacco in his mouth and hear old wood creaks of his shack. Something is missing here. Did he forget anything?

Keith leans against the counter. “Shiro.”

“Hm?” Shiro puts away the last plate and closes the cupboard.

They have filled him the details. Lance and him went on a light mission to check and secure a nearby planet while they discuss about alliance. It went well and they've provided useful materials to earth until now. Their ship malfunctioned on the way back, crashing onto sold ground. Lance didn't make it to the hospital while Keith was under.

They are always careful whenever the topic revolves around Lance and Keith appreciates that, but a part of him wants to talk about it even if it's breaking him. He wants someone to know how. . . mixed up his perception is.

“Is Lance really. . . dead?”

Shiro looks at him sympathetically and a hint of pain behind it. Of course, Keith isn’t the only one who’s impacted by his death.

“Yeah, I saw his body myself. He had a small smile plastered on his face even after he died," he said, "Why?"

"It seems unreal for me. I don't really feel like it happened." There's something missing here. Something terribly important. The room slightly spins as he tries hard to remember what it is. "What's happening to me?"

"Maybe you should go to bed. It's pretty late now." Shiro smiles.

He's probably right. Maybe he just needs some rest like everybody suggested and it'll all make sense. After all, there's no way Lance said goodbye in his dreams.

He wishes Shiro a goodnight and goes to his room, already feeling exhaustion creeping up. Man, weeks of staying still on bed takes a whole lot of a toll on his body even after his persistent hard work on bringing them back to normal.

He's out the minute he's tucked under the covers and sighs the fatigue away.

"Hi, Keith," Lance waves a hand cheerily at him.

Wait.

"Lance?" He frowns.

"The one and only," he said.

Keith launches himself, hugging the life out of the boy while Lance lets out an  _ oof _ followed by choking sounds.

"Alright, buddy, I missed you too," Lance says with air squeezed out of his lungs.

Wait. Keith lets go but lingers his arms on Lance. He notices his surrounding. Blurry and barely recognizable, but there is something around them. Maybe in a house? Or outside? He squints his eyes harder. Then he remembers that he fell asleep just now. Oh, this is a dream?

"No, this is not a dream, mullet. Actually, it kind of is but not exactly. I'm really here but this is still your dream, you get what I mean?"

"What. Then why- I thought you were gone."

Lance smiles and steps in front of him. He puts a hand on Keith's shoulder and he  _ feels  _ it. He feels every touch. His nerves reacts to every contact, telling him that dreams don't do this.

"Hey, I told you that I'll always be at your side, didn't I?"

"I thought you were dead for  _ a month _ ."

"Yeah, I owe you a big apology for that. But I'm neither dead nor alive." He bit his lips. "It's complicated."

Lance wore the exact same thing when he left. This. This can't be real, can it? It's the same Lance. Or at least what he think of Lance. His mind isn't playing games with him right now, right?

"Then where are you?"

"Long story but you'll eventually figure it out yourself." Lance put both of his hands on his hips, sighing in relief. "Now that I'm one hundred percent sure your soul is still intact, I gotta go."

"Wait, you're going again?" Keith makes sure that he's  _ gripping _ him now, locking him in one place.

"I really wish I could stay but duty calls," he smiled apologetically, cupping Keith's face with a hand.

"Lance, don't-"

"Don't worry, I'll be back, bud," he said before becoming blurry to Keith's sight.

Keith shouts, begging him to stay. He doesn't know when they'll meet again. He doesn't know what's happening or where they are or what Lance meant by he's not dead and alive. Keith is  _ lost  _ and Lance is slipping away from his reach again after weeks or months of thinking that he's dead.

Keith wakes up. He sits up in cold sweat shouting his name and frantically looks around. He's under a heavy blanket but it's not his. This is not his bed, not his room. Everything is foreign there except for a dark green jacket hanging by the door and his Marmora suit beside it. Where is he? Where's Lance? Where did he go?

Something touches him and he flinches, getting away from it. There's a warm hand placed on his chest and another reaches to his back rubbing circles on it.

"Shhh, it's okay. It's okay, sweetie, I'm here." It's Lance's voice. His voice is rough from sleep. "Breathe with me, okay?"

He realises he's been breathing too fast that his vision swirls. Keith follows as Lance takes slow inhale and exhales, gaining a bit more control of himself again. The firm palm against his chest grounds him and he melts to the steady soothing motion on his back. But not more than a minute, he asks "You're still here? I thought you were leaving again."

Lance frowns in worry. "Again? No, babe, I wouldn't do that to you." He secures that statement with an embrace, caressing Keith's head. "I'm not leaving you. It was just a dream."

Keith's breath hitches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof


	3. Flower Shop

"But- but you just said that you were leaving? Where are we? Why am I here?" Keith rambles.

Lance pulls away first, looking pained by his confusion. As if he thinks the nightmare is creeping up, eating him up slowly. Which is  _ not  _ the case because it wasn't a dream and Keith trusts his instincts. 

Some time ago he woke up people telling he was under a coma with Lance dead and now he woke up in different place again. Sure it will make someone go insane, but Keith is a paladin of Voltron and his Galra blood is boiling to overcome this weird mess.

"We're at our bedroom on our bed, sweetheart."

Their bedroom?

Something clicks in Keith. He remembers. They've been married and living in this house they bought for three years. It's his memories but it's not. Even his body feels different. He doesn't feel the strain in the muscles when he moves and the persistent headaches again.

Another foreign memory surfaces. Their team doesn't  _ exist.  _ Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, Coran, Allura, and and the others. They don't exist in this memory. This Keith only sees them as acquaintances and nothing more because the war never happened here.

The memories muddle and mixes together, leaving him overwhelmed with a whole range of emotions. Which one is  _ real?  _ Which one really happened? Is this one a dream as well? Did he ever wake up at all? He takes a shaky breath and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Keith?" Lance's hand stays on his back the entire time, keeping him on the ground.  _ This  _ touch is real. But if this is real then why do the other previous memories feel real as well?

"Keith?" He repeats, even more worried that Keith's not responding. He doesn't know how to respond. His mind is full. Too full. Full of possible explanations for this. In a distant memory, far back, he recalls the existence of other universes and how he fought there with Voltron. The concept of different realities matches his situation now, but that doesn't tell him  _ why  _ and  _ how  _ he is doing this.

He knows Lance wants him to talk about it, but this Lance seems to know him more than himself. "Alright, come here." Lance lays down and opens his arms to invite him in. Keith finds himself leaning towards him. His head weighs from thinking too much.

"Let's just try to sleep again, for now, okay?" His Lance or not, he's still Lance and he never fails to comfort Keith.

They settle under the covers. Lance’s arm secures around his waist, up to his back, legs tangled. Keith lets his thoughts wander to the lulling sound of Lance’s heartbeat until his eyelids become heavy.

~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


Keith draws out the neglected cigar from his lips. Nicotine never calms his nerves, but the comfort of familiarity usually does as it grew as a habit of his. Even between different universes.

He hears coughing as Lance sits beside him at the dining table, swatting the smoke away. "You know, different Keith or not, I'm not approving you smoking."

"Sorry." He kills the cigar with a twist in the sink and throws it away while fanning the remaining smoke to the window. He just bought a pack of it early in the morning, in hopes that it'll comfort him like it used to somehow. But now, he only tastes poison on his tongue.

"So, how does it work?" Lance shifts as Keith walks back to the table to finish his coffee. "You jumping between universes or realities."

"I don't know." He pauses in deep thought. "I don't remember much from my original early memories. All I know is that I met you then I woke up in a different place after you said you're going. Twice."

"Wow, the other me seems like a jerk." Lance lets out an understanding hum as Keith chuckles lightly. This morning, Keith woke up in his arms that's circling around and the quiet sound of his breathing filling the room. It tickled his mind, reminding him something similar in his original self. It was nostalgic, how the dim light of morning spilt across their bodies and how content Keith was.

As dumb as the Lances are at times, they can be sharply observant and it never fails to catch Keith off guard. He told nearly everything to him after breakfast about not being the Keith he knows and Lance wasn't too shocked to hear it.

"But you still remember that this Lance takes cream for his coffee?"

"Yeah, I have this world's memories."

"Huh." He thoughtfully rubs his neck. "What are you going to do now? How long does it usually take to switch worlds?"

"I…" Keith fidgets with his empty mug. "Don't know."

This Keith owns a flower shop with Lance. It's strange because in this universe, even if the war didn't happen, the earth is connected to the outer world and owning a small flower shop and a farm seems to be very Lance-like. Keith couldn't resist the twinkle eyes when he talked about having their own intimate shop where loyal customers come and go.

He can recall their first meeting, which includes a lot of heated arguments and denials. Their first date trapped in Keith's non-heated apartment in a snowstorm. Their first kiss where a white-haired man with prosthetic arm accidentally bumped him too hard, he crashed on Lance's face. Their wedding day full of joyful tears and beautiful smiles and how emotional Keith had been, they had to delay his vow a bit because Keith couldn't stop sobbing at Lance's words.

There were fights during the first few months of their marriage, but they resolved it quickly and learned more about each other. Keith almost died to a nasty virus. His fever spiked dangerously high that his heart gave up for a moment. He heard from the doctor with an orange moustache that Lance fainted when he was informed Keith's heart stopped for a while. Someone once burnt their shop. Keith tackled the culprit that's stuck at the window of the building that's burning, but they lost quite a lot in the fire.

He doesn’t remember much from his own self. Only glimpses of a framed picture of Lance, the taste of tobacco and pure darkness constantly looming over him as if day was just a concept. A ghost living in an abandoned house for only God knows how long. The scarcely remembers that the war was over at that time. Well, the war in the world at least, not in himself.

This life is full of happiness and adventure. One that he's envious of. He would stay, but it doesn't feel like it's his to own. A pang of  _ longing  _ that he doesn’t understand hits him breathless.

"You know, if I were myself, I'd keep something from you because I know you would hurt yourself because of it."

Keith perks up from his mug, staring at Lance's beautiful ocean eyes. "What would that Lance hide from me?"

He shrugs, lifting his shoulders. "I don't know, hun. But I wouldn't hide anything without a good reason."

It still doesn't make sense. Keith slumps against the table with a sigh, resting his head on an arm. Dead end. He can't do anything on this point.

A memory pops up. They're supposed to pick up Cosmo, their space wolf, at 9 AM. His mom borrowed Cosmo to help her find something she lost in the river and she promised to give him back as soon as possible because Cosmo still doesn’t do well with separation anxiety. Oh crap, it's past 11 AM and Cosmo is caged up in the airport. Alone.

"Lance. Cosmo." He stands up.

"Huh? It's today?" He glances at the clock. "Crap." Lance follows Keith to change their pyjamas and hurries to the car.

Whatever his Lance may be hiding, Keith hopes that he’s safe out of harm’s way.


End file.
